TOO SOOON!... to PUG

[Omedon]

Jeez, did I call that one or what?

So the internets are aflame with the "heroics are too hard to PUG" conflagration, and I am shaking my head at all of it.

Guys, it's been two weeks. This isn't your farm content. It's certainly not communally mastered content. It's TOO SOON to full-on PUG!

I blame the skill of the guilds that are downing raid bosses already. Ok, not really, those guys are hardcore, and deserve a toast to their efforts, but where some of us will toast, others will look to their guild and frantically crack the whip. See, that's just stupid. That's just plain stupid-stupid. Everyone plays at their own pace, not the pace of the superstars boasting on the internet, I have covered this extensively here on this blog, but it needs to be said again: your neighbor's pace does not set your own. I don't care how competitive you are, if this kind of obsession is negatively impacting you or your friends' fun, you are doing it wrong.

For most of us in the game right now, at two weeks in, heroics are the reasonable endgame. Here, let me share with you my personal progression map, maybe this will make my angle make sense.

Step 1: Level up. Check
Step 2: Run some leveling regular modes throughout step 1. Check
Step 3: Work on crafting and reputation. In progress.
Step 4: Level 85 dungeons, queueing specifically until comfortable with ALL of them. Likely my Xmas break occupation!
Step 5: Random regular modes, until reputations are capped, or all drop upgrades are acquired.
Step 6: Specific heroics, until comfortable with ALL of them.
Step 7: Random heroics.
Step 8: Queue with less than a full group of friends. Yes, every step up to this point will likely be strictly (or pretty damned close to strictly) 5/5 friends/guildies. It's been the rule so far.

Now, as has been noted before here, I don't count raids as part of my goals, ESPECIALLY given that, yes, 5-man heroics are "REAL content" now (WOOHOO!), and will entertain me just fine, thank you very much. That being said, that anyone would skip any of these steps, even on a road to raiding, boggles my mind. I wonder how many people are skipping these steps, and how many of the complaining parties are skipping these steps. Oh right, I forgot, raiding is the only real goal worthy of tactical consideration, how foolish of me....

No, people, just no. There is a long, intendedly entertaining and challenging path to raids now. As it should be. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: by the time you are imposing on 9/24 other peoples' time, you should know what you are doing... and if you know what you are doing, (including knowing when you bring your own team) you're not griping on the forums about how hard heroics are.

It's kinda nice how the numbers 10 and 25 break down into groups of 5, isn't it? My question to the WoW community is how many of these "functional" raiding guilds are taking advantage of that math? Can you really, as a guild, set your eyes on raiding in Cataclysm while ignoring the fact that you can't just tell your guild "hit the dungeon finder on your own time, get gear, see you on raid night"?

Here is my crackbrained suggestion for the week that I know Blizzard will never implement, but would fix a lot of problems: make the dungeon finder require the dungeon completion achievement in your log as part of the "unlocking" process. They have already become "that guy" on the gear checking front, and people are already gaming the system to bypass it (*facepalm*), maybe they need to become "that guy" on the "link achievement" front. I'd support that 100%.

There is no group content, there is only team content. If you can't provide a team, from your end, that's not your content. Walk before you run, or you are doomed to crawl.

Thank you for reading, HAVE FUN, and don't rush yourself! What's the hurry, anyway?

[Deleted]

I can agree with you on some points, but i can't agree with you thats it's to early to PUG, playing a tank i don't mind joining PUG groups to heroics, aslong as you don't RAGE after dying one time at a boss or a pack then there shouldn't really be a problem, keep a cool head and explain to people how to do it, then try again.. There are some instances that just are harder to PUG, but so far only instance i really had problem in is DM where people just didn't have enough DPS on admiral so my healer ran oom..

Other then that, most people who failed on a boss made it the 2nd time after being explained the fight..

[Deleted]

*3 weeks

They aren't that hard, just takes some practice but they are all doable. Some are harder then others sure. Let people do what they want. Me for example, I just wait until people are more relaxed and focus myself to get that new shiney archeology sword ^^

[Garbles]

i find heroics are too easy now.

[PBitt]

You definetely have some points in regards to a large portion of the WoW player base that aren't neccesarily bad but are also in need of a ton of work to even start to master their class. Myself I was pugging heroics succesfully and all by my lonesome self on the tenth, a day after I hit 85, and have every day since just fine, with most people not really belonging there. I never hit any normals once I hit 85, I had enough gear, I actually enchanted and gemmed it with thousands of gold of shit because I don't care about that. My second heroic, Skywall, didn't have a single person die at all from my memory and everyone carried their own weight, including myself. Normal mechanics are much simpler on most boss fights, doesn't really do you justice 'learning' them because they are pretty much all tank and spank and very forgiving, there is not much to learn from them and you don't need the best of the best gear to complete heroics by any means.

Raiders that actually know their class up and down can easily skip most of these steps, because its not about gear its about skill (and knowing what to do with the gear you have!) Now, if you are implying that its too early to expect pugs to be wonderfully magnificient and full of players that carry their own weight and are ready to tackle some of the hardest achievements, then yes, you would be very correct. As for the players that have been playing for years and play the game for something other than gear they just droll over then this does not concern them, though I believe you addresed that.

[Deleted]

i find heroics are too easy now.

Well, both yes and no.. Some bosses where you actually needed to morph and CC at the start i just pull, there's no need to CC some of them anymore.. Other still just wtfpwn you, but some parts are way to easy ._.

[Pockmark]

On one hand, the OP has some good advice for people complaining about the quality of pugs, the queue time in dungeon finder and the overall difficulty of heroics.

But he also seems to be taking a swipe at those people who do want to blast through the heroics and get on with the raiding.

I think that's the great thing about WoW. You can play it anyway you want to. I actually play like the OP. I don't expect to see any raid content until at least the new year. My guild is new, there's no real push to get ready for raiding, we're taking our time.

But that doesn't mean I look down on people who do want to get on with raiding. They're not doing it wrong, there is no wrong.

[Muis]

So far the majority of dungeon pugs i got into were good (so far my heroic groups were better then my normal dungeon runs :P)

[Soisoisoi]

Heroics aren't too hard to PuG with at all.. I've done every heroic in a PuG since week 1.. People need to stop bitching and stop hoping they get carried and do some work. The heroics aren't hard, in fact they're pretty easy if you half half a brain-cell.

Though, I do agree with your suggestion, it would be good to have people do the instance before being able to queue for it with the RLFG, it would save a lot of forum QQ because then at least people have done it before and know most of the tactics. They already make you discover it and have an item level (Which can be bypassed, gogo average item level in your bags!)

[Deleted]

i find heroics are too easy now.

^this. not even using cc anymore if im going with friends

[Fulltimejoke]

Here is my crackbrained suggestion for the week that I know Blizzard will never implement, but would fix a lot of problems: make the dungeon finder require the dungeon completion achievement in your log as part of the "unlocking" process. They have already become "that guy" on the gear checking front, and people are already gaming the system to bypass it (*facepalm*), maybe they need to become "that guy" on the "link achievement" front. I'd support that 100%.

/Signed

It's like they skipped a step in the progression chain; or they just expect people that want to rush (without skill mind you) will just learn the hard way. Either way, your suggestion would be for the greater good in my opinion... or heck, just remove the gear level requirements and sub in the dungeon completion requirements instead. That way it really is a matter of skill > gear.

[Devilyaki]

Some points make sense, I didn't run heroics till I at lest did them once normal. But the all instance done with 4 friends for everything, no, I don't know about you but I don't have people to do 5 mans with when ever I feel like it. That is just stupid-stupid, it's just confuses me you think that, normal people don't say loged in 24/7 just to complete your check list.

[anyaka21]

I think for the most part, that it's not completely the difficulty level that has people rage quitting, etc... but it's kinda become the norm.

Let's be real here, dps is waiting upwards of 45-50mins in queue, then in their queue they are more than likely to get an in-progress dungeon as their choice, and chances are - if it's in-progress - it's in full-fail mode. Thus they've wasted 45mins of queue time. And add that even if successful and gets in a solid group, it still takes upwards of 2+ hours to do. Thus that's 3 hours for 1 daily...that' too much. Add to the fact that most guilds have started raiding, that means 6-8+ hours a day playing WoW.

That's just over the top and harkens back to the EQ days, and that's way overboard in this day and age of MMO's No one wants that kind of time commitment grind in order to keep up.

Let's also examine a simple thing that most people also tend to get confused with in the same essential mode - and that is - ....time=/=difficulty. A lot of people think that a hard dungeon/instance is a hard one. That's completely not the case whatsoever. At least half the trash in every instance could easily disappear, significantly reducing the time commitment for an instance, making them much more fun. Add that, I think a lot of people get overly frustrated with trash taking so long to get to a boss, then it's easier for the them to rage quit because at that point they feel like they've wasted 1.5 hours (45 min in queue+45mins to boss), and as thus have a much smaller tolerance level for mistakes.

[xxAkirhaxx]

I agree with you OP. My main toon is the type of character you described that is raiding, and skipped many of those steps, but I am leveling an alt. My alt just hit 85, and he's running norms, doing quests, and capping reputations. If you plan on pugging you have to prepare correctly.

[Twoflower]

Here is my crackbrained suggestion for the week that I know Blizzard will never implement, but would fix a lot of problems: make the dungeon finder require the dungeon completion achievement in your log as part of the "unlocking" process. They have already become "that guy" on the gear checking front, and people are already gaming the system to bypass it (*facepalm*), maybe they need to become "that guy" on the "link achievement" front. I'd support that 100%.

And how do you suppose people will get that achievement without the dungeon finder ? I am DD in a small guild, we rarely have tanks and healers online. So my only possibility would be to spam trade chat till I find someone nice enugh to take a DD with him that he never heared of ?

I agree on the "what's the rush" though. I am taking it slow, only finished my first heroic yeterday, and it was just right in terms of pace and difficulty.

Btw, about skipping steps : I dont have a single heroic item yet, but my guild leader told me that I would be ready for raiding. So much for not being able to skip steps.

[phyrix]

And how do you suppose people will get that achievement without the dungeon finder ? I am DD in a small guild, we rarely have tanks and healers online. So my only possibility would be to spam trade chat till I find someone nice enugh to take a DD with him that he never heared of ?

I agree on the "what's the rush" though. I am taking it slow, only finished my first heroic yeterday, and it was just right in terms of pace and difficulty.

Btw, about skipping steps : I dont have a single heroic item yet, but my guild leader told me that I would be ready for raiding. So much for not being able to skip steps.

We've been managing without the dungeon finder for 5 years before it came along. Suddenly it's impossible?

And I'm sure you're ready for raids without doing heroics if you're a dps. But if you're a tank or a healer, there's absolutely no way. As dps you can afford to do a little less damage, it's not going to wipe your raid. An undergeared healer or tank is a sure wipe.

There's raid bosses out there that hit a heroic (5-man) geared tank for 50k damage or more, and that's only the boss' melee damage, take into account other aoe or environmental damage, and your normal geared tank with 110k hp will be obliterated in seconds. I don't have to explain what that means for healers.

[Deleted]

I was fully pugging heroics since week #2 of the expansion and I gotta say that I was surprised how many good groups and good people I have met so far.

I dont know where the WotLK DKs and rets are who were totally retarded, did nothing right and only bitched, complained, afk'd and benefited from the 15min CD on kick from LFD.

[gibbie99]

Its hit and miss. So many people haven't done it before, so every time you have to explain or learn fights. I just did Lost City last night. I have no clue what the mobs actually do. But so far i want this to be my first heroic, its much easier than stonecore. Seriously if I ever see Stonecore again its too soon. It's a beast to tank.

[twinkleblur]

you can pug when you think you are ready to be honest. that 1st week was hell to pug but after you gear up it gets better.

[Bahll]

When I tank I always tell ppl after a wipe, "Now we know what they do, lets kill em"(or something to that effect) normally that keeps ppl in line and stops the nerd ragers from alt4f out. If ppl don't want to put in the time to learn the content and master it and they QQ, I VTK. Im hear to progress and crying isn't gonna do it.